Habitat is a physics-based space survival game where you build, fly, and fight with stations you assemble out of space debris. Upgrade and arm your creations with weapons and structures you find in orbit, fly and explore using rocket physics, and do battle with deadly enemies to save humanity.

Sign in to add this item to your wishlist, follow it, or mark it as not interested

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you
should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Habitat is an Early Access title. We chose Early Access so we can test key game features in order to fine tune the gameplay experience in the final months of development. It is still under heavy development with new features being added on a regular basis. Please expect there to be bugs, locked off content, missing features and other possibly serious game breaking issues.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We expect to be in Early Access for several months.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The full version of the game will get all the features we implement through this Alpha and potentially more. We will update everyone as we get closer. Customers of the Early Access version will get the full version of Habitat.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Alpha build that supports 70% of game features in a sandbox environment. The build is fully playable and gamers will get a good taste of the key game mechanics that the game is being built on.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Yes, we plan on raising the price slightly as we add more features and functionality to the game.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Community feedback will be taken on board during the final months of development to mold the final game features and to make sure the final game delivers a solid and polished product.”

July 9

Commanders - presenting Habitat v0.8! In this version you’ll find rescuable and moving Citizens, point-and-click navigation, and many changes to combat, engineers, and interactions! And, we’ve heard you loud and clear about the initial difficulty. We’ve turned it down so you can spend time flying and fighting at your own pace!

NOTE: Many aspects of the game have changed. Not all of the new systems are present in the Tutorials. Read about the details below to familiarize yourself with the changes.
NOTE: Saved game data file formats have changed from v0.7. Your previous save games are not guaranteed to work with v0.8. If you wish to remove or edit them, they are plaintext JSON files here:
PC: Users\<You>\AppData\LocalLow\4gency\Habitat_EarlyAccess_\HabitatSaves
MAC: <Your User Folder>/Library/Caches/unity.4gency.Habitat (Early Access)/HabitatSaves
LINUX: Home/.config/unity3d/4gency/Habitat_EarlyAccess_/HabitatSaves

Introducing Rescuable and Moving Citizens

Citizens have been in Habitat for a while, but hidden away in the dark corners, unwilling to come out and brave the deep void of space.

Now they’re a part of the fight.

Citizens - when they’re in habitats - show up as blue, yellow, or red dots, and have the ability to move around the station through the connectors. Since each piece of a habitat has a maximum citizen load the citizens will attempt to spread out as best they can. Here’s what the colors mean:

Blue - No problems - I enjoy living here! (minus the liquid food and lack of greenery)
Yellow - Getting crowded - I’ve had to move from another node that has too many people! (Watch out for too many of these, it’ll indicate you’re reaching population max)
Red - Emergency - I’ve just run away from a node that’s been damaged or hit with an elemental weapon!

While you won’t have to worry about citizens’ individual health while they’re on board the station, space is a dangerous place and in the heat of combat you may find yourself with citizens on the outside - rather than the inside - of your habitat! Ejected citizens can come from extreme damage, connector breaks, or destruction of habitat pieces. They have a limited breathing time of 35 seconds, and their own health value, which can be damaged by weapons, elemental effects, and physical collisions.

You can pick up still-living citizens (yours or anyone else’s) by running them over with one of your habitats, or sending an engineer to rescue them. Beware! Other factions will send engineers to steal your ejected citizens if they’re nearby, and may attack you if you rescue citizens that they think are theirs!

If you’re running short on citizens, remember that you can always recruit new ones at the local Town, or - and we’re not saying you _should_ do this - destroying other stations and taking their citizens. Okay, we said it.

Point and Click Navigation

While we love the unique flight profiles of multi-rocket habitats, sometimes you just want to get somewhere. With the return of omni-thrusters we’re happy to introduce a point-and-click steering system for your habitats.

To fly: Left-click the Player HQ (the big donut) or one of your sub-habitat command bridges, and then left-click a destination. The omni-thrusters will fire up and begin moving.

You can Emergency Stop to cancel the waypoint, or simply set a new waypoint close to the current location to stop navigation.

Some notes:

This mode will use all omni-thrusters attached to the habitat but it won’t use booster rockets. Those are still yours to individually command.
While in this mode you can use the arrow keys to achieve precise movement with boosters.
There is no object avoidance built into the navigation system. If your navigation line crosses a black hole or minefield, so will your habitat!

You’ll now notice a distinct lack of the “connector killer” nano machines. We may introduce them later in the game at higher difficulty levels but they weren’t meant for the start of the game. Our apologies!

Nano-machine engineers still convert space junk, but now they convert it only into other engineers, not nanomachine hunters.

Your engineers should now be much more resistant to … whatever it was … that was killing them for no reason out in space. Our scientists are still working that one out, but they assure us safety is a priority.

Engineers from all sides now have a more limited range to auto-operate. You can still send your engineers long distances manually - but we may need to reign that distance in a bit in future versions for balancing purposes.

Introducing the new combat music theme! If you hear the music, one of your stations is under attack. Stay alert!

April 29

Commanders - presenting Habitat v0.7! We’re continuing to add features and expand gameplay; in this version you’ll find the start of our Factions system, enemy Engineers and engineer combat, new physics hazards, the return of omni-thrusters, control improvements, new space junk and more!

NOTE: Many aspects of the game have changed. Not all of the new systems are present in the Tutorials. Read about the details below to familiarize yourself with the changes.
NOTE: Saved game data file formats have changed from v0.6. Your previous save games are not guaranteed to work with v0.6. If you wish to remove or edit them, they are plaintext JSON files here:
PC: Users\<You>\AppData\LocalLow\4gency\Habitat_EarlyAccess_\HabitatSaves
MAC: <Your User Folder>/Library/Caches/unity.4gency.Habitat (Early Access)/HabitatSaves
LINUX: Home/.config/unity3d/4gency/Habitat_EarlyAccess_/HabitatSaves

Introducing Factions

Space is dark and mostly empty - but not the world of Habitat! This update you’ll get introduced to a few factions - the first of several that’ll live in the Habitat world.

Factions have their own agendas - they’re not always out to get you! Each faction has its own allies, neutrals, and enemies, and as we build out Habitat you’ll be tasked with missions that involve them all.

Look for the flags on habitat ships and space stations to identify who’s who:

• Pirate Flag - Space pirates. Their engineers will attempt to sabotage pieces of enemy ships. They are antagonistic to you, to civilians, and to nano machines.
• Yellow Flag - Nanomachines. Their engineers will turn floating space junk into nano-machine hunters to track you down. They are antagonistic to you, to civilians, and to pirates.
• White Flag - Civilians. These poor souls are right in the middle of combat and just want to be left alone. They will leave you alone but will defend against pirates and nano machines.

There are a few more factions we’ll reveal as we go along, space is a big place and there’s room for everyone - until the resources run out!

Engineer to Engineer Combat

With factions, you’ll also notice that each ship and station has its own engineers. Every faction fields their own engineer army, and some of them are out to cause trouble for you and your allies.

Orienting a whole ship just to take out a few menacing space pirate astronauts is a pain; that’s why engineers are packing their own firepower now! Engineers on all sides field the preferred weapon of the space duelist, the Inertia Pistol. These hand-held momentum cannons do physical damage, but also stun and fling the struck engineer backward - which can end in some nasty consequences, especially if they hit a nebula, an explosion, a black hole or even just a really big rock.

Click on enemy engineers to send your nearest available engineer to attack - note that you’ll have better chances if you send multiple engineers! Attacking an engineer is considered an act of war, and other engineers may join in the fight to defend their attacked comrade.

Watch out for anti-personnel turrets on some habitat nodes. They’ll make short work of any engineer that trips its friend-or-foe identification system. For your protection your habitat will be provided with one, and in the next update you’ll be able to buy and upgrade them at towns.

New Physics Hazards - and Danger, Engineers!

We’re continuing to make the world of Habitat a more dynamic place. Three new physics-based hazards join the nebulas to make travel and combat even more interesting:

• The gravity well sucks in objects and deals crushing damage at its core. Once a certain amount has been swallowed, the well will emit a strong pushing force to clear itself before inverting back to a pulling force.
• The tachyon ramp pushes any objects in its field in the direction of the field particles. Send your habitats - or your projectiles - for a ride.
• The force anomaly is a mysterious blue sphere that emits a force wave at irregular intervals. Thoroughly destructive results may result when steering too close.

You may also notice - the hard way - that nebulas can now deal damage to engineers. The results can be lethal! Be especially careful if engaging in combat near nebulas, gravity wells, or other hazards; a stunned engineer that goes into a freezing nebula may come out a popsicle. Hypothetically, of course.

Improved Controls: Omni-Thrusters

What are those items on your HQ when you begin the game? They are two omni-thruster producers, and we’re glad to have them back! Omni-thrusters make it possible to maneuver more precisely, and without needing to find and attach rockets.

Controlling them is easy: Just hover over the HQ, and then hold the arrow keys in the direction you want to go.

Some tips:

• It’s easiest if you hit TAB to focus on your habitat, then the mouse cursor stays right where it needs to be.
• You can combine omni-thrust with rocket boosting for precise and powerful control.
• New command bridges you create come with a thruster on them for easy movement.
• In the next update, you’ll be able to buy and upgrade thrusters for your individual habitat nodes, to increase mobility as you need it.

For a future update we’re also considering an “autopilot” where clicking on a destination auto-fires the omni-thrusters as needed to reach the goal. Would it be useful? Let us know on the forums!

New Junk Types

There’s always more out there. We’ve recently come across a set of utility pieces from a large set of mining and refinery ships that used to work the asteroid belts. The pieces we have for analysis here bear a few smudged letters: N_S_R_MO. Our researchers are baffled; no idea what it means! Here’s what we’ve found:

• Colony Waste Tank - A waste reclamation unit from a JPC ReadyMade! brand habitat. Still appears to be processing Omni.
• Colony Hybrid Generator - A solar-powered generator combined with a habitable space; a standard colony unit in the JPC ReadyMade! line.
• Colony Structural Pylon - This reinforced structural pylon comes pre-slung with electrical and life support cabling, and plenty of connections.
• Colony Large Nacelle - A large colony structural nacelle, able to support multiple production units with a variety of cabling and connectors.
• Colony Medium Nacelle - A smaller-size colony structural unit, with room for two production units and good universal connectors.
• Colony Storage Tanks - A JPC All-In-One brand fuel refining and storage facility; the fire shielding is a little out of code but otherwise OK.

About This Game

Habitat is a physics-based space survival game where you build, fly, and fight with stations you assemble out of space debris. Upgrade and arm your creations with weapons and structures you find in orbit, fly and explore using rocket physics, and do battle with deadly enemies to save humanity.

Leading your team of engineers, you will have to build and fly your space stations in a zero gravity setting, mastering physics driven flight simulation to explore the space around you. In order to thrive and grow you have to manage your population and their environment. In the event of a threat get creative and turn your space stations into deadly weapons using pieces of debris you pick up such as rockets, lasers and particle accelerators to fight and ultimately survive against attacks from the enemy. This is a space survival game where crisis is guaranteed and your only chance for survival is to be creative and decisive in the face of disaster.

Key Alpha Features

HABITAT EARLY ACCESS BUILD. Please note this is an early development build and is not representative of the final game. Remember to check the announcements for more updates as we routinely add features!

These are the features you can expect to experience in this early build:

Explore a procedurally-generated orbital playing field with a dozen space junkyards to raid

Manage a team of engineers to build, rearrange and repair your habitats

Assemble your habitats to any size, using 40 different types of items and dynamic connectors

Combine or split apart your habitats at any time, have as many habitats as you want

This game has issues... beginning with the tutorial.In the first mission I managed to put the two parts right next to each other ... only one block apart ... too bad that they are bigger than one block .... and so they generated phantom forces making the ship spin out of control.

Yeah it is bad in a tutorial* ... but in the real game is devastating.

*= which has also the issue that it only shows the buttons that you are allowed to use instead of graying them out. That lead (in my case) to a total confusing start in the real game.

Same in the 2nd tutorial ... it is a bit awkward to be shown rockets on the side and later not to know that isn't possible ... and the unlink function is disabled (aka. completely missing).

There is also the issue of the camera angle ... everything in this game with this gameplay screams "I am meant to play top down" but the camera won't let you (probably a objection from the artist: "but think about all those great 3D models") ... leaving your ship in the way all the time.

The other not great thing is that ship parts towed by your crew can be towed through your ship ... which should be changed in later versions so that is moved under or above your ship. ... That shouldn't be too hard.

The game ends up starting throwing you unprepared in middle of literally one million things from what are more than enough enemies.

The circumstance that you have to do one million things and that there is no way to slow it down seems to me as preperation for making it multiplayer. But multiplayer can lead to all sorts of problems in this kind of game.

So what I am missing is a third part of the tutorial in which is everything present, but no enemies ... so that you really can learn how to build and how to use the UI.

Or at least an easy mode for the game ... a "slow" start (in which you won't encounter enemies for at least a while after starting the game) would also do.

I wish i could reccomend this game I really do. After playing for a while i have noticed serious gamebreaking bugs. my ships break everytime i go to lunar orbit and ship parts constantly break off for no reason when first placed as well as the worst one which does not allow me to recruit engineers but wastes the resources and stunts all my ships stats so no matter what i add on it never changes. i have tried unistalling it and starting new saves but the bugs persist. I will continue to play this game but can't recommend it at this stage in development.

This game has single handedly stopped me from buying early access games. I picked this up 8 months ago when it was first released and it was unplayable. I wanted to love it, so I decided to leave it alone and give the developers more time. 8 months later it is still no where near completion. There have been some improvments to the UI and there are starting quests which help but there is still no purpose, it takes eons to move your ship and god forbid your ship is slightly off balanced from the random crap they provide because you will have to constantly turn on and off one engine to compensate for the imbalance. Overall it's not even worth $1 at this point. See you in another 8 months when it will hopefully be nearing alpha stages.

For an early acess game it's pretty good. the only problem is the gameplay, it should be more exciting than traveling to places. On the other hand you can attack enemy ships and stuff but you have to travel to a location to take on the missin and then travel again to get to the enemy. You can build multible ships which is cool and toggle between them. theres a few bugs, like my engineers dying from lack of living space when i have 4 living towers, but not many major game breaking bugs. Since they are updating it I feel like it was worth my 15$ now and will be worth it later. All i have to say is DO IT..... FOR THE BURGERS.

This game is good fun for about half an hour - you can build a wacky ship and mess around with fun weapons but that's more or less it. The flight is really difficult, though made a little easier by proper booster placement and hotkey assignment. Maybe some kind of inertial dampening block would be handy to stabilise your ship. (Edit - an "emergency full stop" isn't really inertial dampening...)

As far as the combat goes, you clumsily maneuver yourself into a position where you MIGHT be able to attack a station and then fire your lasers - the station is dead more or less immediately without putting up a fight. You then realise your next target isn't that far away, were it not for the difficulty in getting that short distance - you will spin all the way around at least 2 or 3 times. Once you're there, same story. There isn't much incentive to build beyond your initial working ship - maybe an engineer limit based on habitat pods would be more of an incentive.

Oh yes, the ship will also bump into nothing, causing a change in trajectory, when you had only just got it pointing the way you wanted.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun and it has a fair amount of potential but at £11 the price is much too high for a game which offers little at this stage and has no save feature.

EDIT: It's worth pointing out that by now this review is fairly old and the game will continue to develop with time. I had felt that at the time my review was fair but should have been taken with a pinch of salt because I am more than aware of how games in alpha are. It is also worth keeping in mind that with early access the old "alpha/beta" defining lines are somewhat blurred and "it's an alpha" is not a blanket excuse for exclusion of basic features. This game is fun, keep an eye on it - but be aware of the limits of early development.